To Tag or Not to Tag?

I'm opening up this particular post to any bloggers, lurkers or extra-terrestrial beings that happen to drop by this site today. If you know someone else who might be interested in giving a response to the forthcoming question, please give them a link over here. (I am nosy and would like as many opinions as possible.)

The question of the hour is;

What do you think about being tagged?

Have no idea what I'm talking about? That's okay. And just so you know, I am not referring to the type of tag that has me pulling my hair out on the school playground. ("Stop running on the concrete! You'll fall down!" THUD. "WAHHH, my knee!" [sigh.] "Go and get a bandaid.") No, I'm talking about the tagging that goes around in the blogosphere, especially when it comes to memes, quizzes or surveys.

Maybe I'm just showing my teacher side, but I'll confess; sometimes I feel uncomfortable with tagging my blogging friends when I'm participating in random quizzes. It doesn't stop me from posting mindless meme entries, oh no! I love me a good survey or fifteen. But I hate the thought of choosing only a few people out of my blogging friends, and I hate leaving people out. Maybe I've just seen too many kids get left out on the playground, or getting picked last for sports teams. So, being the dork that I am, I generally refrain from tagging people.

On the same note, I should also confess that I love finding out that someone else has tagged me to take part in something. (They love me, they really love me!) or is it... (They must think my blogging entries are piss-poor lately, and that a meme will shut me up.)

Anyway, it's just a random curiosity I have. Let me know what you think about it all. Even if you think I am being a dork writing an entry about tagging, that's alright too. Power to the dorks!


15 Comments • Labels:  

15 comments:

Susan C said...

Nah don't like it. Its like being back in the playground where all the cool kids got picked first. Sometimes they forget the fat ungainly kid (aka moi) and that sucks!

Like you, I don't mind memes, quizes etc. I will quite happily pinch any idea I like (pinched one of your's yesterday).

Then on the other hand, if you do like tagging, what happens if you are the tag-ee and you don't like the questions????

Jess said...

Haha, I think no one is interested in me enough to want to read any surveys or anything by me, so when I don't get tagged, I don't really mind -- I'm scared people will yawn their way thru my entry, cos I'm kind of boring, lol!

nila said...

Yeah, the tagging is pretty alienating. If you're not a cool popular blogger, you're probably not going to get tagged too much. For example, I've only been tagged once.

Mick said...

Yes.

Power to the dorks.

Which brings me to tagging.
My problem is that I have too few people who read my blogs who will actually bother to respond to my tag anyway, and usually one of them will be the person that tagged in the first place!

So, hence with that musical meme I just decided that I couldn't think of 7 people and I piked.

I like to just steal those quizzes and stuff anyway, and it just so happens that I was going to do that soundtrack one that you did yesterday soon as well!

But I have a whole dorky post about the randomiser in iTunes. That's a whole nother story.... ;)

reformattingmybrain said...

Here in the blogging world it's a bit different than real life. Not to mention we are all grown adults, who I hope are mature enough to play and have fun. I guess when I do tagging I try to pick different people all the time. Or just say I tag everyone that will play. It's hard to pick just 3 or 5 or however many we are to tag at the time. I want to hear about EVERYBODY! Love ya all! I've had the problem with Susan's last question. There are times I choose not to participate, beings my family reads my blog sometimes.... some of them might be, in my opinion, inappropriate for my family to read. Like not to long ago when they asked your favorite position.... seriously I didn't think my Dad needed to know :-) My husband is the only person who knows that and needs to know that. Which is what I typed.

heidikins said...

Tagging: a) a gentle force to get people to read your blog AND respond to your ramblings. b) expanding the blogosphere, one post at a time. c) freakin' awesome!

Of course, I hate not being picked by a friend - but I think with the right verbiage and all-inclusive tags you can get just about everyone. It's not like you will get 37 years of bad luck if you tag extra people.

lara said...

i definitely appreciate being tagged but i - and many other bloggers, in my experience - have no problems just taking a meme for their own without a tag. i think the thing about the blogosphere is that it's so open, so everyone feels able to write a meme with or without a tag. with one is just... different. not necessarily better or worse.

although i will admit that with some memes, like the "real moms..." one, it's a bigger deal for me personally to be tagged than for other memes. :)

Candace said...

I honestly don't care either way. I don't normally "tag" anyone and I only do a survey if I find it interesting. That isn't to say that it wasn't interesting reading everyone else's responses but if I go through and I think that my answers would be SUPER boring and lame, the chances are that I would not take it myself. But honestly, I looove reading surveys and stuff like that on people's websites. The only thing I REALLY dislike is those stupid on-line quizzes that say something like "What Star Wars character are you??" or "What kind of mid-evil lover are you??" an stuff like that. I love to take them for fun but I hate when people actually post their responses... I have NO idea why this bugs me.. just one of my little pet peeves I guess.

Teacher A said...

I'm not really a tagger due to the fact that I know so few bloggers well enough that I would feel comfortable tagging them, and those that I might tag are usually the ones I got the meme from in the first place. A few too many years of being picked last for sports has also made me a bit overly conscious about the implications that tagging some (and not others) might have.

Of course, that all isn't to say that I wouldn't feel just like the bell of the ball if I were to be tagged.

RA said...

For me, it depends on what the tag is. I don't really want to fill out a 90-question survey, but I can handle six weird things. I've only been tagged once - which is just fine with me - but I feel like I would have this giant sense of obligation if I didn't pick up on the tag even if I really didn't want to do it. I probably wouldn't do a meme that didn't tag me specifically, though. I also feel like if I were to tag anyone, they wouldn't see it anyway, and I don't want to be the exerter of peer pressure.

I know we're all adults, but I definitely have this weird state of limbo when I feel accepted and cool if I get tagged, but if I don't, I'm all, "That's right, you're not the boss of me!" Shrug.

angela said...

The big catch-22, isn't it? Like you, I don't like tagging people either, just because I hate picking and I don't want to ever guilt someone into doing the meme. Needless to say, I always kind of like getting tagged though. Makes me feel a little bit special.

Nocturnal said...

I don't care actually, as long as it's cool if I don't play along given time constraints, etc. Most who follow suit know that.

No big.

Laurel said...

I don't mind being tagged, but I hate to do the tagging! So, I just don't!!

Lady M said...

I don't like to tag people because I don't want them to feel obliged. I like the short memes, so I'm happy to be tagged for those. I've seen some massive 100 question memes that I've been happy to dodge though. Usually, by the time I'm tagged, everyone I know has already been tagged and I just say, "anyone who wants to play, come join!"

Jodi said...

Interesting question and no, I didn't know what you thought about tagging. ;-) What do you think about people commenting on really old posts????? :-)

I find the awards the hardest when it comes to not wanting to leave anyone out. And sometimes people get missed simply because people assume they've already been awarded.

I don't mind so much the memes but usually I will pick people I know reasonably well more than tagging someone I don't know.





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